OK. We are not rookies. We have cruised almost 30 times …about half of those with Celebrity. Every time we cruise we book several specialty restaurants. I seem to remember clearly that the cover charge, as explained also included gratuities for the staff and while not necessary, you could then pay the staff additional $$ after dining. In other words $50 covered the meal and the gratuity. I do not ever remember being charged a gratuity in addition to the $50 in advance.
We recently reserved specialty restaurants for our upcoming cruise and I noticed in the confirmation we received after the fact via email we received that an 18% gratuity was added to our charge. Is this normal? If so, when did this start?